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Irvine leaders are looking to add more reviews for where new warehouses in town go amidst concerns that too many warehouses and logistic buildings are going in next to homes.
It’s been a growing problem in the Irvine Business Complex, where city leaders are trying to expand housing development to keep up with state mandated zoning for new housing, forcing homes next to businesses with heavy traffic.
Now, Mayor Larry Agran and Councilwoman Kathleen Treseder are asking their colleagues to add new rules requiring larger warehouses and logistics centers to get a conditional use permit before they can be built, instead of allowing by-right development.
“Increasingly, we have seen neighborhood compatibility problems, roadway infrastructure degradation, and environmental impacts being created by these facilities,” Agran and Treseder wrote in a joint memo.
That would require businesses to go in front of the city’s planning commission, which would review the neighborhood around the proposed shipping center and look for ways to make it fit in better or deny the proposal altogether.
It’s the same policy Agran and Treseder supported when it was brought forward by city staff in April 2023. That idea was voted down by the previous city council, with opposition from then Mayor Farrah Khan and Councilmembers Mike Carroll and Tammy Kim.
At that meeting, Kim said that kind business mix was one of the things that comes from living in a mixed-use area as opposed to the city’s larger residential areas, dubbed villages, and asked what the economic impacts on the city would be for limiting warehouses.
“I feel a lot of this is very arbitrary right now and I want to make sure as we proceed forward we’re taking a lot of things in consideration,” Kim said. “The mixed use planning areas are simply not the same as the villages.”
Khan and Carroll did not speak to the issue at the meeting but voted it down.
But the new Irvine City Council includes three members who weren’t on city council at the time.
That means the issue is soon to get a new discussion at Tuesday night’s meeting.
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada.
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